GenCon this year was a lot of fun! It was a lot different than previous
years, at least for me, but it was different in a neat sort of way. I
didn't get to play much, (only 4 games total) but the rest made up for it.
So, without further ado, here is the slot-by-slot ruminations...

SLOT 0 - RPGA Meeting

Wednesday evening (August 9th), many RPGA members gathered at the Hyatt's
ballroom for the annual member's meeting. The unfortunate thing was that
the scheduling monitors said it was going to be at 6 PM, and I didn't see
anything to the contrary in the program, so I showed up there then.... and
waited an hour. It started at 7. Oh, well.

The first thing on the agenda was a short address from the new RPGA
director, Scott Douglas. He struck me as a good person for the job. (He
made no apologies for the the changes that were made in the Living City,
saying that he would take all the credit and the blame. More later.) Next
came the charity auction, which those who have gone to the meeting in the
past will recognize as the most tedious part. This year's wasn't all that
bad. There was a 45 minute scheduled time slot (I believe; I lost the
agenda they passed out), and it went over by only five minutes. They even
got everything sold, I believe. Anyway, check out these numbers and see if
there's anything amiss:

6 tickets for Star Wars game GMed by SW guru, Bill Smith - $20 each

6 tickets for an AD&D-based SF game with Roger Moore - $20 each

12 tickets for Birthright game with one of the designers
(2 designers = 2 sections; I don't recall who the designers are) - $10 each

All official Living City-legal books, as mentioned in
Polyhedron #110 (FR box set, FR book, AD&D rulebooks, Tome
of Magic, and a slew of handbooks) - $180

Pommel of the Holy Sword for a Living City character
(Apparently, you can collect the three? parts of this sword
in adventures over the next year, and assemble them into a
paladin's holy sword. Some knew there about this already,
but I had not heard of it before.) - $130

Manual of Puissant Skill at Arms for a Living City character - $650

Complete set of Polyhedron magazines - $200

Animal companion for a Living City character, less then 2HD,
and no monsters! - $200

"The Angels" handmade incense burner - $100

16" handmade copper dragon - $225

Bonded horse (5+5HD) for a Living City character - $400

All in all, well over $4,500 for Children's Hospital and Okada. As Jean
Rabe would have said, "It's for puppies and children!" Isn't it curious
that the sheets of paper (the four LC magical books, the pommel, the animal
companion, and the horse) made about three-quarters of that? ::sigh::
Especially since one person bought two of the books, I believe.

The meeting went on with the State of the Network speech and some Q&A. I
believe that I wrote down incorrect numbers, but those numbers are 6700
domestic and 800 international members. Later, Scott mentioned 9600 total
members, so I must have misheard something somewhere. Everything is caught
up (there was rejoicing), the September tournaments have been sent out, and
the October tournaments should be going out soon after GenCon. This is in
part due to the efforts of the new tournament coordinator, Robert Wiese.
In the next few months, HQ will be looking at restructuring, like tiered
memberships for an example (pay more for more benefits) or a product that
RPGA members can get before its officially released. There will be
players', judges' and tournament coordinators' handbooks out in a year or
so, to help reduce confusion. At Winter Fantasy next year, there will be a
32 page "promotion" (Scott can't produce a "product") called LC5, the
Player's Survival Guide. This will be an official guide to the Living
City. Scott didn't seem entirely sure what will appear, but he gave
several examples of what could be there which I neglected to write down. :(

Most members will know by now that the knighthoods, laws, heraldry and
new LC character guidelines are in Poly #110. (I have not looked at them
in any detail yet.) They are "not negotiable" and become effective
October 15th, which should give everyone plenty of time to retrofit
characters. Scott noted that this is after AndCon and another convention
the name of which I forget. Both apparently big LC cons. He said if you
do or don't like them, send him feedback. The guidelines will be changed
sometime in the future (this is a living setting, after all), and the
feedback is appreciated. The books that rules can be used from has been
reduced so that judges have less rules that they need to have at least a
passing familiarity with. Chemcheaux may be back. There is a freelance
group doing trading, buying and selling, which is not entirely sanctioned,
but is not discouraged, either.

Turning to Living Jungle, there will be an expanded guide on giving out
Hero Points in Poly #113. This is to be a pretty heavy LJ issue,
apparently. The LJ tribe contest submissions have been scored, and the
locations will be announced in the FOG area on AOL (what happened to
GEnie?). They will also be at the (and I found this most interesting;
first I seriously heard of it) TSR World Wide Web site, which will be
online by the end of the year.

Anyway, before or during or after the meeting, I ran into several fellow
GEnieites, including Dave Gross, Jeff Stolt (Overlord), Jamie and Stacy
Chambers (and their sister Bambi and father), Drizzt (whose real name I'm
still not sure of ), Eric Rosenberg, Jay Fisher (The.Minstrel) and Carl
Buehler (well, I saw him speak). I got to sit in the front row (I was
there so early, remember?) between Jeff and Wes Nicholson.

SLOT 1 - "The Phoenix Effect" (Torg)

And then the actual con started, 8AM Thursday. I played the only Torg
game in the pre-reg book. It was... all right. A bit on the uneventful
side, possibly. But it was Torg, the best role-playing game system I've
ever played. (IMHO ) This was down in the labyrinth underneath Bruce
Hall, and there was a vent shooting arctic blasts of air at us, until we
built a sort of wind shield and then later the vent was turned down. This
was rather uncomfortable, as I was dressed for the 80's-90's southeast
Wisconsin was experiencing. This would have worked better for...

SLOT 2 - Ice Age Tournament (Magic: The Gathering)

Slot 2 found me in the Ice Age tournament, at the other end of the
labyrinth, under the Arena. It was much warmer there. My deck wasn't
especially hot, though. There were five rounds, in which you played two
games against a different opponent of a similar record to yours. I
understand that this is what is called "Swiss Style." (3 points for a win,
1 for a tie, 0 for a loss) I like it better than single-eliminations,
because I got to play 10 games. I won the first two, then lost two, then
split the next two and lost both of the last round, ending up with 13
points. As I was late to meet some friends, and it seemed that I would not
advance, I left. (Nobody please tell me that that total would have
advanced me!

Let me just say that Portent, Brainstorm and Diabolic Vision are really
cool in getting your cards to show up in the order that you need them Too
bad I only had one Vision.... Ray of Command is a great card, too.
Interesting that one of my opponents, having used Ice Floe (which taps its
target) on one of my tapped attackers earlier in the game, objected to my
using the Ray (which untaps its target) to steal one of his untapped
creatures, saying that I couldn't untap it because it was already untapped.
::sigh:: He finally relented, and I beat him.

BTW, bethmo (Beth Moursund) was helping run all the Magic tournaments
that I saw during the weekend. I'm sure that there were other recognizable
names there, but I didn't stare at all the nametags.

SLOT 3 - The Great Hall

(I didn't do all of this in Slot 3, it's sort of a conglomeration
throughout the convention. )

It turned out that the friends I was meeting weren't there when I got
there, probably because I was late. In case you're interested, this was at
the Infinity Entertainment booth, run by a friend of mine. Unfortunately,
his mainly-empty booth was between Tri-Tac Games and Inner City Games (the
Fuzzy Heroes people), both very colorful booths. Oh, well. It turned out
to be a meeting and drop-off point for several of us. It was variously
decorated with a purple baby Cthulhu and a werewolf skin during the
convention.

Anyway, again this year it was obvious even to the most Groo-like of
attendees whose con this was. Yes, the Fortress was back. This year, the
Spellfire tables were being used for Dragon Dice, which I unfortunately
didn't get a chance to try. In the large space in front of the Fortress,
there were often performers from the Bristol (WI) Renaissance Faire
performing. Or so I'm told; I didn't get through there very often. (Now,
the WOTC booth...) There was a large pile of awards sitting in the middle
of the courtyard, one of which I understand is in the hands of a fellow
GEnieite, Jeff Stolt, the Blood Wars champion. Congratulations, Jeff!

[ Oh, did I mention the name of Groo the Wanderer? Groo's creator,
Sergio Aragones, was there in his own booth. He was the comics guest of
honor. I really haven't read much of his work, but I got a Groo book
signed for a friend who's heavily into Mad magazine. ]

There were also the usual demo tables around the walls of the Fortress,
including a rather intriguing-looking Planescape area. Pretty neat, but I
didn't spend much time there.

Well, there was the Wizards of the Coast booth right next door! It
looked like a lot of the same elements were used as last year, but it was
in a different configuration. There was a "Gunslingers' Table", where I
believe that members of the national teams from the world title the weekend
before played all comers for ante. I didn't really spend any time
watching, but I bet it was a lot of fun. There was also an original Mark
Rosewater puzzle there, with the actual cards on a tagboard. The decks
were those of the world champion and the runner-up. If you solved it, and
your name was picked, you won a Richard Garfield-signed Black Lotus, as
well as the cards in the puzzle. The next two got RG-modified cards, I
believe. I solved the puzzle (with a little help...), but I wasn't around
for the winner announcement. Should I expect a package...? (For those
who didn't see the solution they had out Sunday, the key to the puzzle is
your Strip Mine. Examine it closely.)

Again, they had a whole slew of artists there, and I got several dozen
cards signed by the likes of (in no particular order) Liz Danforth (who was
displaying her work at the Flying Buffalo booth), Margaret Organ-Kean, Doug
Shuler, Phil and Kaja Foglio, Randy Asplundh-Faith, Mark Tedin, Susan Van
Camp (she had her own booth), Anson Maddocks,